


A Leopard Never Changes It's Spots

by rickandmortysincave



Series: Blissful Ignorance [2]
Category: Rick and Morty, rickmorty - Fandom
Genre: Frottage, Heavy Angst, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rick and Morty - Freeform, Smut, Trigger Warnings, Underage - Freeform, commission, rickmorty, somnophilia a little bit but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 08:24:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18279467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rickandmortysincave/pseuds/rickandmortysincave
Summary: Morty wrestles with his demons following the aftermath of the night he shared a bed with his grandfather in a sleazy motel room. Unbeknownst to him, Rick is dealing with some personal demons of his own.





	1. Poison

**Author's Note:**

> I was once again commissioned by Ghosty (what an absolute sweetheart) to create a follow up to the first part of this mini series, "Better Than the Floor". My life has been an absolute roller coaster these past couple of months, but she was awesome enough to support and encourage me even as I was being a complete pain in the ass. (⇀‸↼‶) Thanks to her once again, and I hope that you all enjoy part two!

            When Morty wakes up he finds the space beside him on the queen mattress empty. A second glance reveals Rick sitting quietly in a chair near the farthest corner of the room, lifting his flask to his lips until it’s empty and then discarding it uneventfully on the floor. Memories of last night have yet to rouse Morty’s sleep-addled mind, and so his first thought instead of panic is a general annoyance at Rick’s drunkenness. When Rick starts drinking in the morning his mood seems to worsen by the minute, and Morty isn’t ready to spend the next twenty-four hours watching just how callous and mean his grandfather can get. He has to figure out a way to get Rick to take them home, and he has to do it before he can become too belligerent to see reason. Morty can practically hear the clock ticking in his mind.

            “Rick, I⸺”

            “Get your things a-and get in the ship,” Rick says dismissively, collecting his jacket from its new place on the chair as he stands and heads for the door. “I’ll meet you there.”

            Before Morty can get another word in edgewise he finds himself alone, wondering just what the hell it is that could have set the old man off this early in the day. He himself had just barely gotten a full night’s sleep after he…

            Oh, Christ. This is not good. This is really, _really_ not good. If Rick had somehow been awake during the events that transpired last night, then Morty is about to be neck-deep in a world of shit. Just how exactly is he supposed to explain himself? He can’t even rationalize in his own mind just why the hell he would do something so dangerous and irresponsible. Something about it just seemed right, or maybe it was just so wrong that it felt right, or maybe he was so exhausted that he wasn’t thinking, or, or…

            God, he can’t even think about it anymore. All he has to do is get through the next couple of hours, and then maybe Rick will let him go home and sleep off whatever weird feelings he’s starting to develop due to his less-than-sensible state of mind. Hopefully after that, the two of them will go back to normal, Rick yelling at Morty for his general existence, Morty proving him right by doing whatever he asks of him, and the two of them will never speak of that night again, content to let whatever was in that moment fall by the wayside and become little more than a bad dream. It was just a tiny mistake after all, a small lapse in judgement that scrambled up Morty’s head and barred him from seeing reason. Rick could understand something like that, couldn’t he? Those kinds of accidents made up at least eighty-five percent of all of his life experiences. How could he vilify Morty for the same exact behavior when he rarely attempted to fix his own?

            At any rate, Morty slips his shoes on and heads out to the parking lot before Rick can drunkenly lecture him on the importance of punctuality, though he can hardly be bothered to show up on time himself. Rick has always been a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ kind of guy like that. Perhaps that’s why Morty seldom ever takes his advice.

            “Door’s unlocked,” Rick calls gruffly from the front office, so Morty slides into the passenger seat without protest and closes his eyes, hoping that maybe when he opens them again, he’ll realize he’s a Morty from a dimension where he hadn’t just fucked up so enormously. At least now he understands the appeal that Ricks see in vicarious dimension-hopping. Right now, he wants more than anything to just pretend to be someone else.

            Inside, Rick is biding his time arguing with the desk manager about the price of his bill. Not that he sees anything particularly wrong with it, really. In fact, he’s pretty sure that they’re giving him a more than generous price, but he knows that if he gets in the ship before the liquor has really hit him, he’s going to have a hard time keeping his composure around Morty, and the last thing he needs right now is to blow his cover by acting out of the ordinary. Better to just do what he does best.

            “I-I don’t care if you gave me a-a-a ten percent discount on the-the original bill, I still think it’s too much for such a shitty room,” Rick detests, fist slamming heatedly onto the counter. It’s not really this poor, barely-out-of-high-school manager that he’s mad at, not really, but when Rick is at the height of his panic, he can never find the courage to direct the anger at himself. If he lets himself cool down a little bit, it’s easier to come up with excuses for the reasons why he acts the way he does. And for that exact reason, he vows to focus his energy on this petty argument, on all of the things wrong with some innocent bystander rather than the reality of all of the character flaws he possesses that are too late for him to change.

            “I can offer you five percent more, b-but anymore than that and my boss will seriously consider firing me,” the manager says to Rick’s extreme dismay. This person is offering him exactly what he wants in order to diffuse the situation at a time when all he wants to do right now is fight. He finds himself at a crossroads much sooner than he expected: bitch out this innocent kid who’s trying to do the right thing, or meander back to the ship only half-drunk and have to worry about looking for all of the signs that he somehow ruined his grandson’s trust and innocence?

            “Alright, alright,” he sighs, hands held up in surrender. “I’ll accept y-your offer, but…just show me the math. I’m not gonna let some community college dropout swindle me out of any schleemies by adding an extra five where there should be a zero.”

            “Fine,” the manager says, smile so tight it looks like his cheeks are about to fall off. “I’ll be right back.”

            Rick taps his fingers against the desk impatiently and hopes that this guy is really as dumb as he’s pegging him for. If he can just get in ten minutes, the alcohol will have had enough time to filter through his system, and then it’ll be smooth sailing until he can get Morty and himself home and forget about the incredibly confusing night he had just had.

            When ten more minutes pass, Morty starts to get _really_ anxious. He has a gut feeling that something must really be wrong, like maybe the desk manager is some secret eight-legged rebel fighter against the Fibtulian Government who can vomit poison at will and wants to get revenge on Rick for killing his sister/wife fifteen years ago while he was on a nasty bender or some other nonsensical shit like that…or, even worse, Rick definitely remembers what happened last night and is now just outright avoiding him because he can’t bear to look him in the eye. Morty really, really hopes that it’s the first one, because he’s pretty sure that there’s no appropriate or conventional way to approach the latter. How exactly is he supposed to act when he returns? He concludes that he likely doesn’t even have enough time to think about it.

            After a few more moments of worrying himself to death, Rick walks out calm, cool, and collected like always, presenting nothing less than the eternal poker face that he wears to keep everyone from reading just whatever the hell it is that goes on behind that carefully composed mask of his.

            “Where are we going next?” Morty wonders nonchalantly as Rick stumbles into the driver’s seat and turns the ignition. Every fiber of his being is hoping that he won’t suggest that they go on another adventure. Morty isn’t sure his heart will be able to take it. It already feels like it’s pounding too loudly in his chest, and he wonders unreasonably if Rick is able to hear just how nervous he is by sitting right next to him.

            “We’re going home,” Rick says.

            “I thought we were only stopping to rest,” he points out, attempting to hide his relief at dodging such a landmine.

            “I-I don’t feel like running around anymore.” Rick wishes Morty would stop asking so many questions. Wasn’t he the one that wanted to go home in the first place? Leave it to him to be bitching about getting exactly what he wants. For such a rare occasion, you think he’d be a little more grateful.  

            Rick may be hard to interpret, but if Morty knows one thing like the back of his hand, it’s the old man’s stubbornness. The only leverage that Morty has half of the time is that he knows how to push the envelope just enough to get Rick to trick himself into thinking that he’s making a decision that _he_ wants to, even if the reason for that decision is nothing other than meaningless spite.

            “Are you sure, Rick? If you’re too-too drunk or something I can just drive us where we need to go…”

            “No, I-I-I…Look, i-it’s not about that, alright? I just wanna-wanna go home and work on o-other shit. Is that alright with you, _Morty_?”

            “Yeah, I mean, you know I⸺”

            “Then shut your trap, you-you’re just annoying me,” Rick interrupts drunkenly, pulling the ship out of the parking lot and into the air.

            Morty props his elbow against the door and stares quietly out the window. Maybe things will go back to normal sooner than he expected. If he’s lucky, he’ll never have to confront whatever the awful thing inside of him is that’s lurking just beneath the surface. He can pretend, can’t he? If he has to stuff that night so far down in his head that it becomes little more than a forgotten memory of the past, change the entire biological makeup of his mind by sheer will power alone, and finish out the rest of his life refusing to feel the regret that haunts most people for all of their lives, then so be it. There are people out there who will still have it much worse than him.

            The rest of the ride passes by without incident, the two of them silently lost in thought, the air between them tense for a reason that neither of them really know the truth of.

            When Rick pulls into the garage he refrains from breaking the silence, only glances over at Morty for a couple of seconds that feel like eternity to the both of them, his eyes saying something that his mouth never will. Morty doesn’t quite know what to make of it, can only stare back dumbly like a deer caught in headlights until Rick throws open his door and leaves him alone to sort through whatever the hell that just was.

            He makes the trek upstairs in a complete daze, head feeling like it’s filled with cotton and anxieties. Maybe Rick does know something and is just waiting for the pressure to break Morty’s fragile mind, or maybe Morty is just putting on a poor show of acting like everything is normal, or maybe, maybe…

            Morty falls into his bed and puts a pillow over his head, yearning to keep all of the intrusive thoughts bouncing around his head at bay, but it’s no use. He can’t stop thinking about the potential of just how bad this all could get. If it ends in Rick leaving again, will he really be able to cope? He barely knew how to get by the last time, had even taken a short stint of a numb-out-of-his-skull bender with all of the pills that the Galactic Federation had been kind enough to supply just to curb that crippling feeling of loneliness that he became unaccustomed to when he became Rick’s full-time lackey. If he leaves for good, and, worse, if Morty is the _cause_ of that absence, then how will he be able to live with himself? Knowing that his own power trips would become the reason his mother cried herself to sleep every night wondering why her love was never enough to get her father to stay, knowing that his perversions would become the reason that the house became so somber and silent and lonely again, well…Morty can only imagine the things that he would do to himself then. It’s not a thought that he often plagues his mind by reflecting on.

            The whole thing is pretty disturbing, if he’s being completely honest. He can’t figure out exactly why he’s trying to sabotage himself so badly, like maybe his life is some sort of sick, meaningless game without consequence that he can just manipulate with ease, one relationship shifting into another, filtering through the different experiences of the weirdness that is a human’s life at will with little care as to how toxic and devastating the results might be. And what is he waiting for? The reaction of the people he cares about; seeing just how far he can push someone to the edge before they break? Just what the fuck does he intend to get out of this?

            After a long couple of hours of facing some of the most awful thoughts a person can have about themselves, Morty finally decides to take two of the sleeping pills that he keeps in his nightstand for occasions such as these and falls back into a much less restful sleep than before.

~

            When Rick says that he’s going to ‘work on other shit’, it could really mean anything. Sometimes he’s working on finishing the last bottle of whatever he can find in the house. Other times he’s working on picking up some poor brainless sap who can fall into his trap of smarts and arrogant charm so he that doesn’t have to spend the night alone. Every once in awhile, he’ll even actually _work_ on the pointless inventions that fill up such inconceivable amounts of his time. Tinkering with these sorts of things for so long has even put gaps in his memory, hours and hours of brain retention sucked up by the work of his head and his hands. Sometimes the only thing he can think about are the gadgets and contraptions that he’s made, the results of the ones that have worked and the reasoning behind the ones that have failed.

            But tonight, Rick’s version of working on other shit is something that he normally doesn’t do.

            When he was a little younger, floating from place to place in an attempt to literally run from his demons, he had saved up a little money to buy a few stowaway houses, quiet little places on random planets where he could sleep in between all of the partying and working and adventuring. They were spaces that belonged to him only, away from the rest of the multiverse and it’s terrifying, nightmare-like realities. After he had moved in with Beth’s family, he had all but abandoned them; there was no need to hide away when you had a perfectly okay cot in a decently sized room right down the hallway from the universe’s best cloaking device/ partner-in-crime.

            He doesn’t want to think about those sorts of things right now, though. Tonight, it’s just going to be Rick and the fully-stocked bar that he keeps in his very favorite place to hide: a house right in the mountaintops of the Peonian Rainforest on Deca 946. There’s not a single being around him for hundreds of miles. In times like these, Rick feels the need to be truly alone. That way there’s no one to interrupt him when he’s trying to drink all of his unpleasant emotions away. Not that he’s really even close to being considered sober as it is.

            He portals through his bedroom wall and stumbles into the pitch-black foyer, nearly tripping over something left vicariously on the floor before he gains his bearings on the wall and hits the light switch. The place doesn’t look much different than the way he left it. It’s always felt this empty, always had this absence about it that never changed, not even on those rare occasions where Rick had lived here for months at a time. As far as he’s concerned, this is the only thing in his life that remains a constant, isolating as it may be. At least he knows he always has something to come back to when shit hits the fan.

            And hit the fan it just might.

            He can’t deny just how off everything felt on the ride back home, like there was suddenly something between them that was purposely going unsaid. But how is Rick supposed to ask what the problem is when the answer might be something that tears apart the very fabric of he and Morty’s relationship? It’s not exactly like there’s a handbook on how to explain away accidentally blowing your load while your grandson is sleeping right next to you.

            Rick shudders and heads into the kitchen to pour himself a drink, if grabbing and chugging the nearest bottle until he’s pulling at nothing but air can be considered that.

            Why did this have to happen to him? He never thought he could be considered one of ‘those’ Ricks that all of the other Ricks talked about, the ones that did things in secret with their Mortys that they rightfully knew they had no business doing. Ricks are dirty, awful, evil creatures, sure. They’ve pillaged, robbed, coveted and betrayed so many innocent beings in their path, so many people that had families just like them who were just waiting for them to come home. In no way can they truly be considered suitable or even able role models and tutors to their Mortys, in fact, even being in one’s presence increases its chance of accidental death by a percentage too high for any Rick to admit to. But it’s some sort of unspoken rule among the Ricks of almost all dimensions. You can do whatever you want: wake them up at three in the morning to tote along on a dangerous adventure, treat them like shit so that they become too insecure to escape you, put them in life-threatening situations just to feel a little rush of adrenaline, the list goes on…

            But the one thing you never do is inject a Morty with your very specific and inescapable form of poison. Morty’s are easily manipulated, so gullible and optimistic that sometimes all it takes is even the slightest suggestion to send them down the path of no return. There’s no going back from something like what a romantic or sexual relationship with a Rick can do to them. In most cases it completely changes them forever. Most turn to lives of drugs and prostitution, the days of their passionate, short-lived flings with their original Ricks now little more than distant memories of the past. Others never even made it past their fifteenth birthdays, ghosts of lost souls drifting aimlessly through the ether blaming themselves for things that were never their responsibility to fix. How could Rick do something so awful to his own grandson? Surely, he could never be the kind of person that would bestow such a fate upon his own flesh and blood.

            Except that’s not entirely true, either.

            The two of them had left their original dimension behind, hadn’t they? How many times was it now that they had moved from one family to another when things became too fucked up to fix: two, three? Occasionally it becomes hard to remember. It all just feels like one big blur sometimes, one mistake after the next, one more time that Rick fucks over everyone he’s supposed to care about for the sake of protecting what little dignity he has left. Obtaining such a god-like status is actually starting to lose its luster, to be quite frank. There have been a lot more regrets about not settling down invading his head lately. Maybe it has something to do with age, but the more he destroys and kills and hurts, the less glamorous his life is starting to seem. What is he doing truly doing with his life? When he dies, what will he be remembered for? The thought makes him want to laugh. Rick has never done anything good to be remembered by. In the end, when he’s sinking into that eternal blackness and the man behind the mask is finally revealed, he’s going to see that he was nothing more than all of the villains that he had sworn he would cleanse from this universe. He almost sort of reminds himself of his father, that bastard.

            Rick pulls another bottle from a cabinet and knocks back what’s left of that one too. All he needs to do is drink enough to blackout and then he won’t have to worry about any of this at all.

            Christ, had that motel been a bad idea, though. Once he learned that they only had single queen suites left, he should have just turned right around and told Morty to suck it up. Not that he was exactly expecting sharing a bed with his grandson to be an _actual_ problem, but hey, Rick’s mind could make any innocuous thing become sick and twisted. He should have known better right then and there. After all, he has been living with himself for sixty-five long, miserable years. You think he’d know his own head a little more by now.

            “Get it together, Sanchez,” he sighs as he retreats to the bedroom and falls back vicariously into the comfortable mattress, his muscles relaxing in places that he didn’t even know were aching. After sleeping on a cot for so long, it’s easy to become accustomed to roughing it wherever you can. When Rick does sleep (not usually by choice, but rather from exhaustion or general drunkenness) it’s usually at his workbench or in the ship in some absurd and incredibly uncomfortable position; the nights he _does_ end up in the cot only leave him with a general bout of pains in improbable places.

            It’s funny, though; years and years of avoiding sleep and right now it’s the only goal that Rick is trying to accomplish. How pathetic is that? Not even the numb of alcohol is enough to keep his thoughts preoccupied anymore, no, he literally has to shutdown his conscious by force, kill his liver and destroy his body so that he can’t do it himself when the feelings become too much for him to process. The number of times he’s tried to end it is just as much a blur to him as anything else. There are so many scars and memories that quite literally haunt him every day, images in his head that he’ll never be able to escape, blood and tears and vomit that almost meant the end but were unfortunately just not enough to wipe him off the face of the multiverse forever. The only two things that Rick knows how to do without fail are self-harm and self-sabotage. Everything after that has just been pure luck.

            Is this his breaking point? Because Rick has been at rock bottom, he’s lost dozens of people in his life, more than he can count on hands and feet, some of those people multiple times, even. He knows what it feels like to ache forever and not know how to get up off the floor when everything hits him, and he realizes just how truly alone in this multiverse he is. There are millions upon billions of Ricks out there and not a single one of them has figured out how to cope with what that truly means. When you have so much power that no one can touch you and yet an unending knowledge of exact copies of you, it’s hard to put meaning into the concept of a unique sense of self. Rick’s own intelligence has quite literally been the bane of his entire existence. He’s never truly ever been able to enjoy anything. Well, at least not since before Morty came into his life. He’s at least drunk enough to admit that. But maybe that’s what’s making this hurt so much more. Without Morty, Rick is just…Rick.

            And what kind of life would it be then?

            As Rick finally starts to slip into that numbing blackness, he’s sure that he never wants to know the answer again.


	2. Truth

             Morty can’t say he’s surprised when he slumps tiredly into his chair at breakfast the next morning and discovers that the seat next to him is vacant. Inside he’s freaking out a little bit, sure, but it’s also not uncommon for Rick to sometimes black out somewhere and not show up for a couple of hours or…days, at a time. He’s pretty sure that enduring the latter after doing what he did is going to eat actual holes in his stomach, but hey, there’s also a possibility that Rick could come home and start acting completely normal again. It wouldn’t be the first time that Morty had wondered if he’d done something wrong only for Rick to just randomly show up at his school or in his bedroom at night to drag him off on another adventure and pretend that nothing had ever occurred. Could that really happen this time if Rick knows the truth? Morty has serious doubts.

            “You okay, kid?” Beth asks, nudging Morty in the arm to get his attention. “You seem a little out of it.”

            “I’m fine,” Morty says, determined to shove it all down. He cuts into his food dutifully like he should, but truthfully his appetite is ranging on the peckish side and the thought of eating everything on the plate in front of him is enough to make his stomach do flips. The twenty minutes until Morty has to leave for school are starting to feel like a lifetime. If only he were sitting on the bus right now, pressed against the window on an otherwise empty seat, headphones in his ears blasting music so loud that he can’t even think. There has to be another way for him to escape all of this. He takes a deep breath and hopes that what he’s about to say isn’t too off kilter. “Actually, I-I just realized that I have to meet with my biology teacher before classes start today. Crap, I’m gonna be late!” He stands suddenly and grabs his bag off the chair with a frantic look in his eyes. Although a little startled, Beth seems to take the bait with ease.

            “Okay honey, just be careful on your way to school!”

            “Yeah, have fun walking,” Summer snickers.

            “He’s not talking to you about something bad you did in class, right?” Jerry asks, his arms crossed like he’s trying to be authoritarian.

            “No, Dad, I promise it’s just about a project.”

            “Alright, you can go then.”

            Jerry’s unwillingness to realize just how little control he has over Morty’s life anymore never fails to astonish his son. He’s become accustomed to this type of behavior ever since Rick moved in. It seems that every Jerry has a cowardly mindset and a bruised ego. It’s not that Morty doesn’t love his dad. He just doesn’t particularly…like his dad, either. And that’s okay. Once Morty had hit his third strike on interdimensional versions of Jerrys, he knew he had pretty much had enough of them. Pretty much a ditto on the Beths of the multiverse too. It’s the Summers that he can’t even bring himself to think about, so instead he offers an obligatory, “Love you guys,” and practically runs out of the door and into the cold morning air. Oh, fuck. It’s cold out. He didn’t even bring a jacket.

            Well, there’s no going back now. Morty stuffs his headphones into his ears and begins the mile-long walk to school with little dignity. His arms are so red when he finally gets there that he’s pretty sure they’re gonna fall off, and the final blow comes when he suddenly recollects that the school only unlocks their doors twenty minutes early and he has fifteen to go. He sighs deeply and closes his eyes. His only solace is that he’s been through a lot worse. A little cold isn’t gonna hurt him or replace his original family or eternally seal his fate to something scary and unknown. That sort of stuff has already been done for him by a certain mean-spirited alcoholic who coincidentally ends up also being the reason that Morty no longer has to wait in the cold when he parks the ship directly on the sidewalk in front of the school and beckons his grandson inside with fervor, rolling down the window and poking his head out for what appears to be dramatic effect.

            “Morty, c-come on we-we have to-to-to…there’s something important we have to do! There’s no time, you-you have to come with me!”

            Morty is beginning to realize that all around him are literal personifications of the old saying, ‘a leopard never changes it’s spots’. Everyone he knows stays the same; the same mistakes, the same fears, the same flaws. Often times Morty feels that he’s the only person in his life who changes at all, and rarely does he find that that change is for the better. He’s always changing…except, that is, when it comes to Rick.

            He gets into the ship as discreetly as one can when onlookers are eyeing him from left, right, and sideways and hopes that Rick will choose not to draw out this particular form of torture for much longer. He’s always pushing his buttons in the littlest of ways like that.

            “Where exactly are we going?” He asks, silently hoping that Rick isn’t about to drive him out to some undisclosed location to murder him on the sly and then replace him with some other poor Morty just like him.

            “Let’s go on a-a vacation.”

            Though Morty tries not to be, it’s clear that he’s taken aback. “I’m sorry?”

            “Jus-Just you a-and me, let’s just…go away s-somewhere nice and we can-can just relax and forget about everything for-for a while,” Rick slurs quite drunkenly, but it still melts Morty’s heart a little for some reason. It’s these small, spontaneous acts of kindness that always keep him second-guessing himself. Maybe there is more than just ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in this world. People like he and Rick are proving that narrative every day. So how could he ever force himself to hate the old bastard? Even after all he’s put Morty and everyone else through, he’s still trying to make him happy. And damn Morty for perhaps being stupid enough to even think this, but that has to mean something.

            “Why now?”

            “Why not now?” Rick counters, so Morty just shrugs and lets him have it. Maybe a vacation is exactly what he needs right now. Rick _is_ the genius, after all.

            After a brief moment of thought, Morty squares his shoulders and turns. “Rick?”

            “Yeah?” he asks, eyes momentarily locked on Morty’s face. He sees something there that bothers him, like Morty is about ‘this’ close to falling apart at the seams. Something inside of him is overwhelmingly determined to change that.

            “This is gonna be like…a normal vacation, right? Not like, I-I don’t know, you crashing the open bar at a closed event on a private resort while I sell a Drumlaní Overlord the last of your kalaxian crystal stash to make enough money to get us home before the security guards throw us out of the airlock?”

            “Morty, why would that exact thing happen all over again?” Rick chuckles nervously. He hasn’t exactly given the kid a lot of good memories to live by, that much is true, but maybe this time will be different. If he can just pull it together for a whole forty-eight hours, then perhaps he and Morty can just skip right over this whole thing and go back to being the way they were before all the trauma and stress and sleep deprivation…for a little bit, at least. Rick is no stranger to admitting that he has no idea what the future holds for him or literally anything else. Maybe every being’s fate is to truly never know at all. It seems all too fitting.

            “I don’t know…I’m probably just getting in my head too much. If you want to go on a vacation, then…” Oh god, is there such a thing as a one-day vacation? If this is another overnight thing, Morty can only hope that there’s an available room with double beds, for the love of all that’s good and holy. “…let’s go o-on a vacation. I think it’s long overdue.”

            “I know the perfect place,” Rick replies, tipping back his flask and giving Morty’s hair a (harmless) ruffle before sailing off into the sky.

~

            “Are we still on earth?” Morty asks as he steps out of the ship and onto a turquoise water beach with sand so white it’s almost sort of blinding.

            “Listen, I know I’m always talking shit about it, but I’d have to be a blind man to-to not admit that there are still a lot of beautiful places in this shitty world. Plus, this is your native planet, so you should see all the cool shit it has to offer before it gets blown up by a nuclear war or-or something stupid like that,” Rick shrugs.

            “So, we came to…”

            “Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu.”

            “Um…”

            Rick sighs. What do they teach kids in school anymore?  “Espiritu Santo is an island in Vanuatu, which is a country in the South Pacific.”

            Morty nods like he knows what Rick is talking about and takes another appreciative glance around him. All behind them appears to be miles of lush jungle, in front of them the glimmering coral reefs in the water full of what Morty is sure will be an ample and interesting amount of sea life. The prospect of the whole thing actually seems sort of…exciting. Huh. That’s a rare thing to get from Rick. A lot of questions are running through Morty’s head right now. Why is he choosing to do this now, of all times? What exactly does it mean?

            “Okay,” he says definitively, reminding himself to relax. “I’m interested.”

            “Of course you are, this place is awesome,” Rick scoffs. “Wait until you see where we’re staying, you’re gonna shit your pants.”

            “Jeez, y-you didn’t spend a lot of money, did you?”

            Rick rolls his eyes and starts to walk down the beach, his pace slow until Morty takes the hint and starts to follow.

            “Morty, I-I’m not really the kind of guy that has to worry about money anymore.”

            “If you say so,” he concedes, eyes glued to the scenery. They walk in silence for a little after that, neither able to anticipate what truly lies ahead. When they come upon a large villa tucked between two huge, moss-covered walls of rock, Rick spins around and waves his arms grandiosely, his face expectant for Morty’s reaction.

            “I…uh…wow,” He says with glassy eyes. “It’s…big.”

            “Yeah, and it’s all ours for as long as we want it.”

            “Are you sure you can afford⸺”

            “Morty, for the love o-of Christ, this place is _mine_. So, can you just-just stop worrying about it? Jesus.”

            Morty raises a quizzical eyebrow. There are so many things he could say in response to that, because, if he recalls correctly, when Rick had originally moved in, he told Beth it was because he had nowhere else to go, and Morty knows for a fact that Rick didn’t have the sort of finances to make a real estate purchase this large while they’ve been living together. The argument is starting to run through his head now, actually, all the things he could throw in Rick’s face right now if he really wanted to, but he finds the desire to land blows at the old man whenever he can find the opportunity to absent, for some reason.

            “And you’re only just taking me on vacation here now?” He jokes, hoping that he’s practiced a Rick-style poker face long enough to use it against the man himself.

            “You’re the only one I’ve ever taken here,” Rick admits. The words send a chill down Morty’s spine.

            “Not even like, an old girlfriend or a one-night stand?” He chuckles nervously.

            “No, kid. Just you.”

            He can’t help it, he has to ask. “Why?”

            “Because you’re important to me. Can we please go the hell inside now?”

            Either Rick is feeling really drunk, or really sentimental, because Morty is almost positive that in the entirety of their relationship, the old man has never once admitted that he considered Morty’s value above that of a sidekick with the convenient gift of also being able to hide his brainwaves with stunning precision. And now he’s just gone and said it like it was the sidepiece in a conversation, a little throwaway sentence that need not be thought about further. Seriously, what has gotten into him?

            The inside of the villa is nothing short of a palace, of course. Rick stumbles through the cavernous rooms to flick on the light switches, each time revealing some marvelous piece of décor or furniture that holds Morty’s interest until he’s finished with his rounds.

            “You want something to drink?” He calls from somewhere far off, pulling Morty’s attention from a lamp with a shade that appears to be made of real, living palm fronds. Perhaps it’s just a trick of the eye… “Morty!”

            “Oh, uh, w-what is there?” He asks, following the source of Rick’s voice.

            “Gin and tonic, mimosas, ooh, I could make a good mojito. What are you feeling?”

            “You’re going to let me drink?” Morty questions with a concerned look.

            Rick may be a shitty alcoholic, but never once has he offered to share in the pleasures of drinking with his grandson. And why would he? There’s no reason to subject him to the delight of drowning himself in the numb of such a cruel venom. But this moment isn’t about that. If he overthinks any of this, then the odds of this turning from a vacation into a traumatic experience become all too real for the both of them.

            “Only if you want to,” he says nonchalantly, grabbing a mixer from behind the counter and stirring a drink that appears seemingly out of nowhere, as if Rick is some sort of weak-willed magician who does his tricks with the very vice that impedes him.

            Morty squares his shoulders and pretends that he’s currently not a huge bundle of anxiety and nerves. “Okay,” he says. “Surprise me.”

            When Rick finishes the drink and slides it across the bar to Morty, he has to admit that he’s a little skeptical.

            “You don’t have to do it if⸺”

            Morty shoves Rick arm and takes a sip from the martini glass, his expression twisted. “Ugh. It tastes like fruity rubbing alcohol.”

            “Well, you don’t have to finish it.”

            Morty can’t figure out for the life of him why he’s taking everything Rick says as a personal challenge, but he knocks back the rest of the glass and sets it down on the table definitively anyways.

            “Let’s go swimming, I built this tunnel through the mountain rock that leads to this huge, secret blue hole. We’re the only people who will ever know about it.”

            “Gosh, I don’t know, I’ve never really been much of a swimming person…”

            “That’s because the beaches you’ve been to in Washington suck, Morty. That state is just a bunch of-of cold, wet, fucking nonsense. Why your mother ever chose to stay there in that house is beyond me. Smart as she is, she-she could’ve gone anywhere.”

            “You do realize the only reason she didn’t leave was because she got pregnant with Summer, right? And then she had me, like, three years later?”

            “It’s a hypothetical situation Morty; clearly there’s no possibility of it actually happening. I obviously love you and your sister very much,” Rick schmoozes, hoping to smooth things over. Morty rolls his eyes.

            “Let’s just get the hell in the water, Rick,” Morty sighs. He discards his shirt onto the counter before heading out a pair of double doors that open into a hidden alcove covered with high ceilings of vines. The path seems pretty short, and it doesn’t seem like Rick is moving _quite_ as fast as he should be, so Morty takes the liberty of running ahead first.

            The whole thing is stunning, of course. Even with the installation of lights, the entire atmosphere has a very natural and calm feeling about it. The shadows on the formations of the cave walls are an impressive contrast to the bright, shimmering water of the blue hole. Now Morty is almost a little sad that he didn’t wait up for Rick. He would have liked for them to have this experience together.

            “You’re always telling me that _I’m_ the impatient one,” Rick chuckles behind him. “Well…last one in is making breakfast in the morning!”

            “Wait, wha…Shit!” Morty yells as Rick zips by him and cannonballs into the water, drenching the only pair of jeans that he has for the next who knows how many days. And now he’s stuck making breakfast in the morning. It’s a well-deserved fate, honestly.

            “Hey Morty, why don’t _you_ get the hell in the water?” Rick whoops, swimming boastful laps like he’s fucking fifteen. Morty laughs like the naïve and adoring idiot that he is and discards his pants onto the unnaturally smooth rock floor. When he jumps in, he makes sure to land close enough to Rick to give him a taste of his medicine in the splash zone. When he resurfaces, the look on the old man’s face makes him laugh even harder.

            “Touché,” Rick nods.

            “This place is really nice, by the way,” Morty points out. Even if Rick never actually planned on this being a place only he and Morty would go, he still appreciates the sentiment of them sharing something together that isn’t suffering.

            “Do you really like it?” He asks nervously.

            The alcohol is sort of hitting Morty at this point, and as he sees his hand resting on Rick’s shoulder just above the water, he knows somewhere inside of him that it probably shouldn’t be, but he can’t find the motivation inside to stop himself for some reason. “I do really like it. Th-This is just what I needed. Thanks, Rick. I-I’m glad we came here.”

            Rick has to duck back under the water to hide the weird blush that’s starting to burn his cheeks. God, something about him is definitely off. Why are these feelings only starting to surface now? It never offset him when Morty said or did cute things before. But all it took was one night that he doesn’t even remember, and now he’s…weird. Why does he have to be so weird? There are a million different thoughts going through his head. Admittedly, most of them are still ranging on the negative side. He has no idea what he should do.

            “Can we really stay for as long as we want?” Morty asks sleepily, leaning back to float in the water. He watches the reflections bounce off the pool and onto the ceiling, glimmering in slow, trancelike patterns. His head is starting to feel sort of heavy.

            “Yeah, kid,” Rick says, but his voice sounds far away. That’s fine by Morty. As far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t have a god damn care in the world as far as anything but this room is concerned. And even then, he can’t really bring himself to think about either of the people currently occupying it and the undeniable amount of sins they’ve committed combined, some that not even the other has knowledge of. Morty has definitely had enough of hating himself for a lifetime. He’s determined to not think about any of this for as long as he can hold out. Doesn’t he deserve to have at least one good memory? “We can stay for as long as you want.”

            It’s only in this one instance that Morty has ever felt that forever is not long enough.

~

            “You’re leaving?” Morty asks in the darkness as the shadowy silhouette of Rick’s figure frames the dimly lit doorway.

            “Uh, yeah, the bedrooms here only have one bed each, so…”

            “Oh,” Morty says, sounding a little disappointed. “I-I thought we were gonna hang out s-some more.”

            “Morty, y-you fell asleep,” Rick snorts. “I literally just had to carry you upstairs.”

            “I’m awake now,” Morty points out. Even though Rick is pretty doubtful that he’s going to be able to hold out, he returns to the bed anyways, keeping an appropriate distance between the two of them, but that only seems to irritate his grandson further. “Jeez, now you’re acting like-like I’m the one with the disease.” Rick groans.

            “Always using what I say against me.”

            “Sue me,” Morty exhales wearily, turning so that the curls of his hair are just close enough to tickle Rick’s cheek.

            “I would lose money suing you, y-you don’t have any assets for me to reap benefits on,” Rick laughs.

            “Mhm,” Morty mumbles, his eyelids fluttering shut as he rests his head completely on Rick’s shoulder. Rick should have never let himself be suckered in. Now he’s trapped here.

            Time passes by in the blackness, Morty’s breathing the only sound to penetrate the deep silence. A few times he mumbles something and holds Rick tighter, but still the old man lays there like a stone and thinks deep, confusing thoughts that lead nowhere but toward a downward spiral. That is, of course, until Morty sidles up real close to his side and begins to whisper his name real low and needy-like. It sends a shock up Rick’s frame, the very sound of it makes him start to feel a little dizzy and weak in the limbs, but his rigidness in no way perturbs Morty from doing whatever he’s about to do.

            “Don’t leave,” Morty murmurs. Even as he wraps an arm around Rick’s solid chest, he’s at an internal war with himself over what to do. On one hand he knows that he’s the adult, and he should be the responsible one. On the other, he knows that that’s never stopped him in the past, and god, Morty clinging to him like this for once feels sort of nice…

            The grinding motion against his leg is unmistakable. Christ. This is very much not good. He should probably just push Morty off, shouldn’t he? Maybe he could use a pillow as a decoy while he makes a break for it, make it gentle so that it won’t break the kid’s heart too much or some bullshit like that. Rick can’t help but wonder if some of this behavior from Morty is his fault. Did he give off the wrong vibes? All this alcohol is starting to blur up his memories. He can’t remember if there was ever a time that he had acted romantically in any way, shape, or form towards his grandson. What if the incident in the motel hadn’t been the only time something had happened between them?

            After some hard thinking, Rick still can’t find any other explanation than that. If Morty is acting on his own accord, then let the old bastard be damned to hell for all eternity. There’s no way that this came to fruition on its own.

            “Rick,” Morty hums again, lips pressed dangerously close to the skin of said person’s throat. Now Rick knows how it felt in the Garden of Eden, that temptation just within arm’s reach, so tangible and so inviting that the idea of not giving in seems to be the irrational one. Fuck, what is he supposed to do?

            This time, Morty is the one who decides that fate.

            Using the leverage he has on Rick’s shoulder, he pulls himself across his grandfather’s chest and straddles him completely, thighs pressing him tight on either side, arms wrapped desperately around the back of Rick’s neck. His state seems to be that of a trance, half-asleep and yet somehow still deliberate in movement. When he presses his groin down towards Rick’s, and Rick’s body, in turn, seems _receptive_ to it, it’s then that he knows he must really be in hell.

            “Morty,” Rick says in turn, but it doesn’t seem to phase him in the slightest. He just continues to pick up the pace, frantic and delirious, as if Rick is little more than a device for all of his sexual frustration. Jesus. Isn’t he the one always going on and on about consent? Like Rick needs to be coached by a kid on how to have sex correctly. The only reason this little shit is here now is because Rick knows how to use his dick the right and proper way. Guess he never thought that Morty would be willing to test just how far that theory could go.

            On the other end of the scenario, Morty is only vaguely aware of just how royally he’s screwing himself. Something in his head is setting off all the alarms, but the blaring noise of all those warnings appears only as background noise in his conscious. At the forefront is a powerful and ugly want, dictating all of his moves, stroking all of his intrusive thoughts to the point of actions, actions that Morty’s mind is suddenly too slow to process, too tired and too carefree to understand the severity of. He pushes on, hands gripping handfuls of hair, hips lifting and dropping rhythmically in time with the beat of Rick’s heart in his ear, picking up an erratic pace as his grandson moves on top of him. God, is he even sleeping? Morty has no idea. This situation feels so similar and yet so different from what it was last time, less like Morty is getting away with something and more like he’s revealing a dirty truth about himself, but it stills feels…good; better than good, in fact. Morty is a sick, immoral, heartless son of a bitch, and that only seems to be getting him off more and more as goes on, hands stumbling over the zipper of his jeans to release himself, the sweet relief of being set free from the tight confines of his jeans making him even harder, and even still he’s too consumed with whatever this feeling is to be ashamed.

            Rick gapes openly from beneath him, his expression awed. Part of him is too afraid to react, scared that this might be a setup or some sort of dream that might disappear if Rick starts to humor himself too much. Morty slides his dick up against Rick’s thigh, precum unabashedly soaking the front of his grandfather’s trousers, and lets out a silky moan, voice keening with insatiable need. Rick is starting to feel uncomfortably hot all over. If he doesn’t push Morty off now, then he’s certainly going to be responsible for whatever is about to happen next. Can he really carry around that kind of blood on his hands?

            The short answer is yes.

            Just like taking a bite of the fruit of knowledge, when Morty pushes back down, Rick responds in kind by pushing his hips back up, giving into the temptation like only he knows how, consequences be damned. Giving in is just adding fuel to that awful fire roaring away behind the old man’s ribcage, only goads him further, his hands traveling to lay in the divot of Morty’s hips, helping to guide him as he grinds down hard and mumbles feverishly, tiny fingers yanking at the top of Rick’s pants and pulling down weakly in suggestion.

            Rick has come this far. What’s the point of going back now?

            He helps the kid with all the hard parts, his own button and zipper that Morty is wrapped too tightly around him to do himself, but the moment his clothes loosen Morty’s grip seems to increase by tenfold, and Rick suddenly finds his pants and underwear laying in bed beside him, a testament to one of the worst misdeeds he’ll ever commit.

            “Don’t leave,” Morty pleads again, free hand desperately searching the bed to find Rick’s own, their fingers intertwining as Morty lowers himself and slides his cock against the length of Rick’s real leisurely, like he’s trying to savor every moment of sin.

            By the time he fully realizes what he’s doing, he’s too far gone to stop himself. Rick isn’t pushing him away, so by some grace of gods, he’s either sleeping or he wants this just as much as Morty does. Rick feels so good, the feeling of his half-naked body is almost starting to feel like a comfort now, the way his dick feels when it catches a sensitive spot on Morty’s thigh, and knowing that he’s the reason that Rick is even hard in the first place is starting to give him a head rush, mind so clouded with adrenaline and power that it almost makes the rest of his thoughts seem vacant and miniscule in comparison.

            “Morty,” Rick whispers, and this time he hears it, knows for sure now that he’s awake, and yet here they are, Morty’s dick just barely out of his pants, rubbing real sweet against his grandfather’s, hands squeezing the other’s for dear life as they rut against each other for that sense of relief that only the other can provide. Morty can feel Rick pulsing beneath him as the space between their cocks becomes slicker, almost wants to say something but has to hold himself back before he can blow his own cover. Maybe tomorrow he can pretend that all of this was just some drunken mistake. After all, if Rick isn’t going to acknowledge what’s happening right now, then as his _sidekick_ , isn’t it Morty’s job to follow suit?

            Rick can feel the heat in his cheeks, but he keeps his eyes closed and let’s himself just…feel, for a little. No negativities, no hang-ups. Just this moment, this electric current in his body, the love he has for the kid on top of him, so broad and undeniable that not even he can explain the likes of it. It feels great to be like this, holding Morty, trusting him and knowing that he’s trusting Rick in return.

            Morty buries his face in the crook of Rick’s neck, pressing his mouth to the taut skin of his shoulder, his heavy breaths the only sound to permeate the stillness of the room, sweat rolling down his temple and soaking the thick fabric of Rick’s sweater, and he knows that if he keeps going at this rate then he’s definitely going to reach the peak, even though he wishes that this sensation could last forever, neither speaking this moment into existence, just feeling each other and leveling on the physical plane, enjoying the earthly comfort of each other’s bodies in a multiverse where they’ve been cast adrift by the threads of fate. If there was never another moment after this, then Morty could die happy.

            Rick bucks up, their heads catching each other on the descent, and it feels like sparks are flying in Morty’s chest. He presses forward a few more times, his dick aching for some sort of release, his legs twitching, knees pressed tight against Rick’s hips, and the moment that Rick kisses the top of his head, holding him close and fucking up against his groin at breakneck speed, Morty feels himself start to spill over, crying out as he’s stroked from top to bottom, his head, his back, his arms, his legs, all of it belonging to Rick, all of it now destroyed by him.

            Rick can’t believe this is real life, can’t believe that Morty just came from the friction of his cock, and he almost breaks right there, almost cracks under the pressure and leaves to go off himself in another room, but as Morty moans wantonly in his ear, his orgasm rocking him over and over and over, Rick can’t deny his own release. Morty on top of him, so soft and small and _his_ , it sends him right over the edge too, swimming in the blackness of euphoria as they cling to each other and ignore all of the obvious truths that are about to plague them in the morning.

            In this moment, and perhaps for as long as they stay, even, that ignorance will blind them, allow them to become the subhuman versions of themselves that take without being prompted, permit them to enjoy each other’s love in a way that it was never meant to be enjoyed, and not a moral ideology in the world could stop them from allowing such a toxic relationship to bloom for all the wrong reasons.

            After all, there’s no sense in experiencing shame if neither of them truly acknowledges what happened, right?

            Morty snuggles into Rick’s side, arm still wrapped tightly around his chest as he falls into a blissful sleep, the room now quiet enough to hear the waves beating heavily against the shore, the possibilities of the following days filling his head as he willfully ignores everything that just happened and begins to dream about situations with similar endings. Rick drops his head back against the pillow, his eyes traveling down to their hands still intertwined on the bed, and in this moment, he feels so untouchable and so filled with a sense of irrational security that nothing else outside of this room really matters.

            Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Check out my twitter @rickmortysin to see updates on works both old and new!


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